I recently heard a political analyst who specializes in China say that the whole ‘build a hospital in a week’ thing is just propaganda - ‘The Marvelous CCP is taking care of you!’ - when it would be faster and cheaper to commandeer existing buildings and turn them into hospitals.
Clearly children would not be going to school in a pandemic scenario, so schools could easily be turned into staging areas with the appropriate medical equipment brought in...
Except you have to disinfect those afterwards. China has said they will be using the prefabs as hospitals and burning them down afterwards for easy decontamination.
Our own government has similar plans on the books, though we would usually use military tents.
Heck. They have whole empty cities.
“...when it would be faster and cheaper to commandeer existing buildings...”
That is the plan in the USA. There was an interview or article by some bigshot, former fed. He said the Feds have tons of emergency supplies to be sent to local governments.
But - not all local governments are up to speed on their plans. It would be the locals taking schools and turning them into hospitals. And the locals that have the worst time of it and best/fastest plan would get the materials first.
So while the feds might have a bunch of stuff, it still won’t be enough to get to everyone.